


Afterlife

by jeeno2



Series: Breakfast and Newspapers [1]
Category: Wonder Woman (2017), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Awkwardness, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2018-11-11 07:38:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11143878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: When Steve told her he wished they’d had more time he meant it. He meant everything else he said to her, too, though he suspects she couldn’t hear him.(Five things Diana teaches Steve Trevor and the one thing they learn together.)(Or: In which the airplane blows up as expected but nothing else goes according to plan.)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I have a trillion other things I should be doing but like everyone else, I was completely blown away by this movie. And in desperate need of imagining scenarios in which Steve Trevor didn't die. :-P I have a bit of free time to devote to these babies at present so here we are. 
> 
> I have a rough outline for this fic already, which puts it at 7 shortish chapters. I've never written for these characters before though (and actually know nothing about them aside from what I saw yesterday in this movie) and if they give me more trouble than I expect I may need to amend that plan.

A lot goes through Steve’s mind in the final moments before he pulls the trigger. 

He thinks about his father – the quiet, smiling man who raised him after they lost his mother – and how proud he’d been when Steve finally decided to do something with his life and join the war.

He thinks about Etta.  She’ll need to find a new boss sooner than they’d both expected, given what he’s about to do.  Which is unfortunate.  But Etta’s smart, and one of the most capable women he’s ever known.  Etta will be just fine.

Steve’s done a lot of things he’s not proud of.  He’s lied, countless times, to so many people.  He’s cheated.  Stolen.  Since joining the army he’s killed more men than he can count.  Every single one of his mistakes flashes through his mind like fireflies as sweat begins to bead up along his forehead and the finger holding the trigger begins to twitch with need of movement.

In the seconds before Steve ends everything he closes his eyes and tries to clear his head.  

It doesn’t work.  Instead, in his final moments, Diana appears behind his closed eyelids.  He sees her the way she was that night on Veld, her dark hair long and luminous, dancing with him as the snow began to fall.  And he sees her as she was much later that night, lying in his arms, as he held her close and tried to remember how to breathe.

When Steve told her he wished they’d had more time he meant it. He meant everything else he said to her, too, though he suspects she couldn’t hear him.  Steve hopes she’ll be ok after he’s gone – and then he laughs a little to himself, because she’s  _Diana_  for god’s sake. 

She’ll be more than ok.

He takes one final deep breath, says a short prayer to any god who might be listening, and fires the gun.

* * *

 

The first thing Steve notices when he comes to is a strange metallic scraping sound coming from somewhere a few feet behind him.

With great difficulty – his eyelids, his entire body feel as though they’re weighted down beneath sheets of lead – he slowly blinks open his eyes.

At that point Steve notices – with no small degree of surprise – that he doesn’t seem to be dead.  The room he’s in is grey and dirty and full of cots just like the one he’s lying on, and while he’s never been a regular churchgoer he thinks he’d remember it if a priest had mentioned hell smelled like disinfectant and rainwater.  

And he’s in way too much pain right now for this to be any sort of heaven. Not that he’d likely end up there, anyway.

Wriggling a little, he realizes his chest is wrapped tightly in the sort of bandages English army nurses use to treat serious burns.  He figures that if he isn’t dead, being badly burned makes a hell of a lot of sense, all things considered.

Steve tries to turn his head, to take in more of his surroundings and to piece together where, exactly, he is.  But turning his head quickly proves impossible.  There’s something thick and stiff wrapped around his neck.  Probably put there, he guesses, by someone who wanted to minimize his movements.  

With difficulty, Steve lifts his right hand and absently runs it along the side of the plaster ringing his neck.  He can’t move his head, so his eyes search the room for clues.  Is he safe here?  Or has he been captured by the Germans?

Suddenly, there’s a flurry of noise coming from just beyond his field of vision.  Some rustling papers, and then metal chair legs scraping loudly against the dingy floor.

“Steve?”  Diana’s worried voice.  His heart clenches hopefully, painfully, in his chest. “Are you awake?”

He tries to answer her – to tell her  _yes, I’m awake, I’m here, I’m right here_  – but his throat is dry as dust.  Instead of the reassurances he wants to give her all that comes out is a fit of feeble coughing.

But that seems to be enough.  She laughs, a sound equal parts relief and joy. Steve’s never heard anything so beautiful.

There are more scraping sounds as the chair is pushed back further, and then a moment later Diana appears.  She stands very close to his bed, hovering near its foot, looking like nothing so much as a goddess from a fairy tale.  A fitting comparison, really.  She’s got on that smart grey suit she and Etta helped her buy back in London.  She must have decided an army hospital wasn’t the right kind of place for battle armor.  

She’s smiling at him, giving him that wide-eyed, guileless smile that’s haunted his dreams ever since she rescued him from the sea.  She covers his hand that’s closest to her with hers and gives it a gentle squeeze.

He swallows, and tries to speak again.  “How…?”

The one word is all he can manage.  His throat is on fire, and the pain is too much.  He trails off, wincing.

 _How am I not dead?_  

If she understands what he’s trying to ask she shows no sign of it.  “I’ll go tell the nurse you’re awake,” she says instead.  But she makes no move to leave. She slowly runs the pad of her thumb back and forth along the back of his hand, leaving a pleasurable sort of gooseflesh up along his arm in its wake.

Steve has no idea if she’s forgiven him for any of the things they fought about before he left her.  All he knows is he doesn’t want to leave her again.  Not ever.  But this, like so many other things, is not in his control.  The touch of Diana’s warm hand and the feel of her fingertips brushing softly against his skin is so comforting, so soothing, it lulls him back to sleep in seconds.

His last conscious thought is that he hopes she’ll still be there the next time he wakes up.


	2. #1: The Importance of Regular Housekeeping

“I’ve been staying at your apartment,” Diana says abruptly.

At her words Steve stops in his tracks, eyes wide.

London is throwing a parade today to celebrate the Armistice and the end of the war.  The city is packed with people from all over the country who’ve come to shake soldiers’ hands, kiss pretty girls, and wave the Union Jack as they take part in the festivities. 

The streets are cleaner than Steve’s ever seen them but the street sweepers, obviously, can do nothing to drown out the noise. It’s been more than six weeks since he last set foot outside the quiet, controlled environment of the army hospital, and he finds all the commotion incredibly distracting. 

He still needs a cane to walk distances greater than about ten feet (he flatly refused to let Diana carry him when she suggested it). And so it takes just about all his strength and concentration to pick his way through the crowd.

All that said, he wouldn’t have been able to miss what Diana just told him if he’d tried.

“Um,” he says, like an idiot, once he’s partly recovered his faculties. He feels the heat rising in his cheeks as he tries, and utterly fails, to keep from imagining Diana in his little apartment. Using his things, eating from his dishes.

Sleeping in his bed.

He coughs into his hand so he has an excuse to look away.

“Etta let me in about a month ago,” Diana continues. “Once it was clear you were going to survive.”

They’re still walking south towards their destination, and though Steve knows she’s moving more slowly than usual for his benefit he’s still panting trying to keep up. When several more moments pass and he still hasn’t said anything in response to her confession, though, Diana finally stops and turns to face him.

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go, Steve,” she explains, biting her lip. “And I did not want to leave London while you were recovering.”

She trails off and glances down at her fingernails. She looks nervous, which is something Steve has never seen before.

Does she think he’s upset with her? 

Better put that to rest. 

“It’s fine,” Steve says quickly, smiling in a way he hopes reassures her.  “More than fine, actually. I’m… you know. Glad. Glad you stayed at my place while I was in the hospital.  I swear.”

“Ok. Good,” she says. She nods, clearly relieved.

“Of course,” Steve says. “It’s just… I dunno. I guess I wasn’t expecting it. You hadn’t said anything about it before, so you caught me by surprise. That’s all.” He shrugs, then squints up at the sunlight filtering weakly through the thick November clouds. 

And then he has a sudden moment of panic, remembering the state his apartment was in the last time he was there. That had been right before he’d stolen the German plane and crashed into the sea off Themyscira.  He’d been in a terrible hurry, and he vaguely remembers that as he’d tossed clothes into a suitcase he’d left dirty laundry strewn everywhere. 

Oh, god.

“Um, I hope my place was… you know.” He swallows. “Presentable.”

Diana laughs. “It was fine. Or at least, it was by the time I saw it.  Etta cleaned it before I moved in.”

Steve lets out a sigh of relief that makes Diana laugh again. (He’ll never get tired of hearing her laugh. Not even when it’s at his expense.) 

“Well,” he says, running a shaky hand through his hair. “That’s… that’s good.”

“Yes,” Diana agrees, eyes twinkling. “According to what Etta saw before I got there, I’d say it’s _very_ good.”

She winks at him, and Steve’s face goes red for the second time this morning.

The conversation apparently over, Diana turns from him, and goes back to walking. 

But there’s a lot more Steve wants to know.

Diana _had_ been staying at his apartment, she said.  She _hadn’t_ wanted to leave London while he was still recovering.  What does she want now that he’s coming home?

It’s a conversation he’s wanted to have every day since he woke up in the hospital, covered with bandages and damn lucky to be alive.  A lot can change in six weeks, and though their short time together during the war meant the world to him… well. Perhaps it didn’t mean the same to her.

She visited him nearly every day of his recovery.  She helped him with his physical therapy and brought him little gifts that made him smile.  But a palpable distance has settled between them during his convalescence, with none of the little touches, meaningful glances, or other signs of physical affection he’s come to crave in the short time he’s known her.

He tries to shrug off the nagging feeling that his current half-broken condition has made her see him for what he really is. Small. Weak. Unworthy of her in every way. Keeping these thoughts at bay has been a lost cause, though. This new self-doubt has been persistent, seeping into his bones as they’ve healed and dampening his spirits.

Steve has so many questions for Diana now that he’s coming home. He’s far too much of a coward to seek answers.

He lets out another sigh as she walks away.

“Hey, wait for me,” he eventually calls out, forcing a smile and trying to keep his tone light.

She turns to face him and offers him an outstretched hand.

  

* * *

 

It’s only another half mile to the large public bulletin board they’re looking for. But London is so crowded today they don’t find Etta and the others until shortly before noon. 

Steve frowns when he sees all the people huddled around the wall of pictures and memories. He wasn't really in the mood for an audience as he said goodbye to the men he'd fought with, and so he’d hoped the crowds would be thinner here. Then again, he probably should have expected this. Today may be a day of celebration, but it comes on the heels of the darkest time any of them have ever known.

He should have guessed he wouldn’t be the only one who wanted to pay his respects.

“Steve! Diana!” Etta Candy cries out, beaming, when she sees them. It’s a chilly day, even for London in November, and she’s got on an oversized winter coat pulled all the way up to her chin. “I’m so glad you came.”

Steve rests his cane against a lamppost and pulls Etta into a great big hug. “Of course I came,” he says. He pecks her theatrically on the cheek. She twitters and swats at him as she pulls away, the tips of her ears going a bit pink. “There was no way I was gonna miss this.  No matter what the doctors said.” 

That last part’s not really true, of course. Steve suffered multiple complex fractures, and second degree burns over most of his body, when he jumped from that airplane. If his doctors had insisted he stay in the hospital another week, instead of releasing him this morning as they’d initially planned, there was no way on God’s green earth Diana would let him sneak away for this. Even if he’d wanted to.

Etta waves him off with a dismissive hand. “Well, fortunately, they let you go.  Here,” she says, taking his hand. “I came early this morning before all the crowds got here so I could have a quick look. I’ll point you towards the photographs I know you want to see.” She smiles at him, warm and kind.

Steve looks over his shoulder to Diana, and gives her a small nod. 

An instant later she’s at his side. 

“You don’t have to do this,” he murmurs. "You don't have to come with me."

But Diana only shakes her head. “I’m here,” she says simply, insistently, taking his free hand. She gives it a gentle squeeze. 

He smiles at her, grateful for her presence and for her reassuring touch.

He swallows thickly. “Thank you,” he says around the lump in his throat.

Together, wordlessly, they step forward to face the ghosts they once knew.


	3. #2: Paperwork Can Always Wait 'til the Morning

When Steve finally makes it back to his apartment he stands in the open doorway for a long moment, blinking in stunned disbelief at what’s been waiting for him here while he was away.

Reams of papers – looking suspiciously like the sort of thing he had to complete in triplicate for the Supreme War Council after each one of his missions – sit in squat, neat piles all over the floor.

“You have…. _got_ to be kidding me,” he finally says, incredulous.

Etta Candy pats Steve on the shoulder sympathetically. One of his arms is draped over Etta’s shoulder and the other is wrapped tightly around Diana’s waist, and Etta sighs as they rather awkwardly help him inside.

“I’m afraid it’s no joke,” she says wryly, stepping over the rug in the entryway. “British paperwork waits for no man.”

“Apparently not,” Steve mutters, barely resisting the urge to kick the stack nearest the front door with the toe of his boot. The stairs leading to his second-story apartment finally behind him, he feels confident enough in his ability to get around his small living space that he lets the arm resting on Etta’s shoulder drop. He doesn’t let go of Diana, though. “What is all that stuff, anyway?”

Diana deftly steers him towards the small couch in his front room. Now that he’s properly inside he detects a slight, but unmistakable, floral scent on the air that definitely wasn’t here before. 

But before he can figure out what it is, Diana sits him down. Much to his delight, she immediately takes the spot on the couch next to him.

“It all arrived while you were in the hospital,” Diana explains. “The former War Council refuses to believe the truth of what happened with Ares, no matter how many times I explain it to them. They were willing to wait until you were discharged, but now that you’re back they want a detailed account of your final interactions with the person they still insist on calling Sir Patrick Morgan.”

Steve’s stomach sinks. While he’s not exactly surprised no one else will buy Diana’s version of events, reliving the night he blew up that airplane full of gas is very the last thing he wants to do now that he’s finally well enough to be home.

“Ah,” he says.

Diana shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it now, Steve. They waited nearly two months for your report. They can wait one more day.”

“No argument from me,” he says right away. He’s sure whatever’s on those papers will make him want to pull out his hair. “I’ll deal with it later.”

“Good.” The matter settled, Diana takes both of Steve’s hands in hers and begins stroking the backs of them, very gently, with her thumbs.

From his peripheral vision Steve sees Etta’s eyes flit between him and Diana several times before they finally land, and stay, on him.

She clears her throat meaningfully.

“Well then,” she says, much louder than usual. “Now that we’ve gotten you home and sorted, Steve, I’ll just leave you two alone.”

She smiles broadly at them – and before Steve can remember his manners and insist she stay a while, Etta abruptly leaves the apartment, closing the front door behind her.

“Huh,” Steve says, staring at the spot where Etta stood less than ten seconds ago. “I wouldn’t have thought Etta would be so eager to… um.” He turns to Diana and swallows nervously. “You know.”

Diana cocks a quizzical eyebrow at him. “You wouldn’t have thought Etta would be so eager to what, exactly?”

Steve closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath. He wills himself to not get flustered, but Diana is still caressing his hands, which makes thinking of any kind pretty difficult. “Wouldn’t have thought she’d be so eager to… you know.  Um. To leave you alone with me in my apartment, like this.”

“But what’s wrong with us being alone in your apartment?” Diana asks, laughing a little.

Steve gives a huff of frustration. “Well… what I meant to say is…”  But he trails off, thinking better of coming up with an explanation. It probably doesn’t matter. After all, Etta apparently doesn’t see anything wrong with them being alone in his apartment, either.

“Nevermind,” he eventually says. He gives Diana’s hands a gentle squeeze, reveling in the fact that they are, in fact, alone for the first time since before his world caught fire. “It doesn’t matter.”

She smiles at him. “Good. Shall we get you settled?”

He nods. “Yeah. Um… you don’t mind?” He looks away, his face growing warm. “I mean, I don’t want to be a burden, and – ”

“ _Steve_ ,” she says sharply, cutting him off. “You are not a burden.” She stands up from the sofa, never once taking her eyes off of him and keeping tight hold of his hand. “Come, Steve. Let’s unpack your things.”

He looks up at her. She’s giving him that look again – that fierce, determined look that can fell entire armies and routinely brings him to his knees.

He gives her a weak smile. “Sounds good to me.” He squeezes her hand again and stands up.  He winks at her. “I don’t really remember where most of my things go, so I’m warning you: this might take a while.”

 

* * *

 

As it happens, it takes more than a while.

After all the commotion and exertion from earlier in the day, the simple work of unpacking and becoming reacquainted with possessions he hasn’t seen in several months exhausts Steve long before they’re finished.

He says nothing, but Diana can see it right away.

“Come here,” she says. They’re in his bedroom – or, her bedroom; or at least, the room where she slept while he was away – standing on either side of the bed that’s been his since he first left his father's home. She pats the bed and nods towards it, wordlessly suggesting he lie down for a moment and rest.

“Okay,” he agrees. He’s too tired to resist, and he's not certain he even wants to. Without another word he shucks off his boots and pulls down the duvet.

Instantly, he realizes that his sheets are the source of the flowery smell he noticed earlier.

 _Must be Diana’s doing_ , he muses, his eyes wide and mind racing. _Or her perfume, or something. From when she slept here._

And just like that, he’s no longer tired.

But she’s looking at him expectantly, and he knows better than to fight her on this. He gets into bed and pulls the blankets halfway up to his chin, half-wondering if it would be a kind of violation, in this context, to keep breathing.

“I need to go out for a little while,” she tells him once he’s settled. She tucks the blankets around him, snugly, so tenderly and affectionate it breaks his heart.

He clears his throat. She’s hovering over him now, her face mere inches from his.

“You’re… going out?” he eventually manages.

She inclines her head towards the small closet in the corner of the room. He follows her gaze and notices her sword and shield for the first time, just visible from within.

 _Ah_. 

“I’m going out,” she agrees. She looks back towards him, smiling softly. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

His heart quickens at her words. “You’re… um. Coming back, then?” Might as well be out with it.

Diana’s eyes widen in surprise. “Always,” she says, sounding a bit stunned. “I’ll always come back to you, Steve.”

He opens his mouth to say something in response but no words come out. Slowly, slowly, Diana leans forward and presses a gentle, lingering kiss to his forehead. His eyes slide closed at the touch of her lips, and an involuntary sigh slips out of him.

“Be safe,” he tells her softly, his eyes still closed.

“Of course.” She kisses his forehead again, and then a moment later he can hear her slipping out of her dress and donning her boots. “Rest well, Steve.”

He nods his assent, his eyes still closed.

He’s asleep in seconds.

 


	4. #3: Narrow Beds are Underrated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to be incapable of writing fic anymore without at least one awkward bed-sharing scene. Forgive the cliche? ;)
> 
> I'm going on vacation on July 14, after which working on fic will be difficult for a while. My goal is to have this little story wrapped up before then.

Steve wakes much later to the sound of quiet footfalls in his bedroom.

He blinks open his eyes to find the room bathed in near total darkness. Diana’s figure is illuminated against the far wall by the burnished glow of her lasso, coiled and half-hidden beneath the folds of her cloak. She tosses the rope onto the small straight-backed chair in the corner, and then slides open the closet door to stow the rest of her gear.

Steve props himself up on his elbows, watching her. “Diana?” he murmurs, his voice still thick with sleep.

He knows Diana can take care of herself well enough without him. But old habits die very hard, and the urge to ask if she’s okay, to find out if she’s been hurt doing whatever it was she was doing while he slept, is strong. 

With difficulty, he bites his tongue.

She turns to face him.

“Steve.” She moves to the bed on noiseless feet, with an ease that goes a long way towards reassuring Steve she’s alright.  She inches closer to him until she’s hovering over his body, and then reaches out to gently brush a lock of hair away from his eyes.  Her hand is warm, but Steve shivers a little at the gentle contact all the same. “It’s very late.”

He nods slowly, understanding what she’s suggesting. He rubs his eyes and moves to sit up, doing his best to tamp down the swell of disappointment rising up in him.

He should have expected this, really.

“Right,” he sighs, looking at the floor. “You must want me to… um.  Take the couch.” He nods towards his bedroom door. “Just… just give me a minute.”

Wordlessly, Diana places one hand on the center of his chest and gently, but insistently, pushes him back until he’s lying down again.

“No,” she says simply, her mouth just a hairsbreadth from his. “I do not want you to take the couch.”

Before Steve can register it’s happening the mattress beside him dips under Diana’s weight as first she sits, and then she stretches out fully next to him. It’s a narrow bed, barely wider than what they shared that night in Veld, and as she burrows under its thin blankets her body bumps into his gently, repeatedly, aligning with his all along his right side from shoulder to foot.

Steve swallows. “Oh,” he says shakily. He notices, for the first time, that Diana is wearing nothing but a thin cotton shirt he’d forgotten he owned. If he was still half-asleep when Diana entered his bedroom a few moments ago he’s wide awake now, every nerve ending in his body alight and buzzing with her proximity.

Diana shifts a little until her head rests lightly on his chest. She wraps her arms around him and snuggles closer.

Steve focuses very hard on remembering how to breathe.

“Good night, Steve,” she murmurs, each of her words little puffs of air against his throat.

“Yeah,” he says, like an idiot, wondering if she can hear the galloping beat of his heart beneath her ear.

 

* * *

 

 

When Steve wakes again, the day’s earliest rays of light are beginning to stream in through the narrow slats covering his bedroom window.

He looks down at Diana and closes his eyes on a quiet sigh.

By the time he finally calmed down enough last night to fall back to sleep he had managed to carve out a few narrow inches of space between their bodies. But that space is long gone now. They found each other again while they slept – like magnets; or like corresponding pieces to a jigsaw puzzle – and now his legs are hopelessly tangled together with Diana’s as she sleeps peacefully in his arms, her back pressed snugly up against the front of his body.

Steve shifts a little – and then freezes as the reality of the situation hits him fully.

Because while he might be fully clothed, Diana is not. All she’s wearing is his shirt.

Suddenly, there is nothing he can do to put that fact out of his mind.  It isn’t long before the feel of Diana’s bare legs – of her soft, lovely curves – pressed up against him, causes his body to react in ways he is powerless to prevent. 

Especially first thing in the morning.

Steve can feel himself growing hard from within the confines of his trousers, and he shifts again, hoping and praying to any gods who might be listening that Diana will stay asleep for a while longer and won’t notice what’s going on.

This – his waking up in this _condition_ \-- had happened the last time they shared a bed, too. But then, the situation between them had been far less ambiguous. They had spent the prior night in the throes of passion and hadn’t bothered to dress before succumbing to sleep. When they woke up the next morning and Diana found him in his current state, she’d simply smiled at him, rolled him over, and pressed him into the mattress as they picked up where they’d left off the night before.

Now, though…

Her insisting on sleeping next to him in his bed is by any measure a very good sign.  But she still hasn’t kissed him – not even once – since the morning he woke up in that army hospital.

He still doesn’t know what she truly wants with him, now that the war is behind them and he is alive against all odds. And still recovering, slowly. To think she’d find what’s currently pressed firmly against her backside a welcome development is probably a bridge too far.

 _Right_ , he thinks grimly. _Time to get myself out of this situation._

Steve tries to wriggle away from her, and to position the lower half of his body away from hers so she won’t realize what’s happening if she happens to wake up.

But it’s no use. As though Diana can sense his body’s movements even in sleep, she repositions herself closer to him with every inch of space he manages to eke out between them, brushing up against his lower body in the process and making the situation ten times worse.

After a few more moments of Steve’s futile shifting around, Diana finally cracks one eye open and peers over her shoulder at him.

“Steve,” she says firmly, stopping his heart. She throws one strong leg over his and throws her arms around him, as though intending to lock him in place. The thin cotton shirt she’s wearing gapes open a little at the top in the process. When Steve notices that he bites the inside of his cheek and slams his eyes shut tight. “Stop moving around so much. I want to sleep a little more.”

“Diana,” he says raggedly. “I need… I need to get out of bed.”

Her eyes fly open. “What’s wrong?” She sounds alarmed. “Are you in pain?”

 _Yes_ , he thinks miserably. _But not the kind of pain you think_.

“No,” he lies. “I just need to… get up, and –“

Diana cuts him off by leaning towards him and pressing a kiss to his lips that’s so tender, so gentle, it cuts off his breathing and breaks his heart.

“Steve,” she says, kissing him again. “What you are experiencing right now is a natural phenomenon that happens to all men when they wake from a period of rest.”  

At her words, Steve feels as though he might burst into flames on the spot. But her tone, and the look she’s giving him, are so matter of fact she might be giving him the weather report.

Then she wriggles her hips meaningfully against his, and all embarrassment – all semblance of rational thought – is gone.

“Diana…” he rasps, when he finally finds his voice. “What are you –“

She chuckles softly, and cups his cheek with her hand. “There’s no reason to be ashamed of your erection. Why were you trying to hide it from me?”  Her eyes soften. “Besides – it’s not like I haven’t seen it before. And more than seen it.”

Steve’s eyes go wide with surprise. And as she leans forward to kiss his lips, his cheek, his jaw, smiling warmly against his skin, it occurs to Steve – and not for the first time – that he might just be the biggest idiot to ever walk the earth.


	5. #4: Sometimes Diana Gets Scared, Too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted an early, very thrown-together version of this chapter on tumblr last night. It's been heavily edited and expanded since then. :)

**~ Three weeks later ~**

 

* * *

 

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

Diana murmurs the words against his lips so quietly that at first Steve isn’t sure he heard her correctly.

Confused, he pulls back just enough so he can look at her. Her lips look plumper now than they usually do. She looks _kissed_. Her long, dark hair is mussed from his roaming hands, and it frames her face beautifully as she gazes down at him from her perch on his lap.

She looks amazing. She  _is_  amazing. Just the sight of her is almost enough to make him forget all about what she just said and go back to what they’d been doing a moment ago.

But it was pretty unexpected, really, what she just said. And her eyes are dark and serious as they take him in, like there’s something important she needs to tell him that can’t wait.

Steve clears his throat and tries to collect himself. 

“What do you mean, you ‘don’t want to hurt me’?” he asks. Because at the moment he’s pretty sure he’s the farthest thing from hurt he’s been in years. Possibly ever. He smiles at her and, unable to resist, goes back to gently running his fingers through her hair. She closes her eyes and hums appreciatively. Will he ever get used to the wonderful little sounds she makes when he touches her, or to the fact that he’s the only one allowed to hear them?  He doesn’t think so. “Why would you even think you’re hurting me?”

“I’m not hurting you yet,” she admits. She leans forward and presses a feather-light, teasing kiss to the corner of his mouth. He shudders into it, his eyes slipping closed again on a sigh. “At least – I don’t think I’m hurting you yet.”

“You’re not,” he assures her quietly. “You’re definitely not. Far from it. Diana – what’s this about?”

Diana bites her bottom lip and looks beyond him at the small framed picture hanging on the wall above his head.  She fidgets with her hands for a long moment but doesn’t say anything.

Steve runs his fingertips up and down along her sides gently, patiently, waiting for her to be ready to tell him what’s on her mind.

“When you were in the hospital,” she eventually begins, her voice barely above a whisper. “After the airplane exploded, and I didn’t know if you were going to live or die. You were so… you looked so…” She trails off and shakes her head. Her eyes go glassy, suddenly, and she wipes at them with the back of her hand.

“Hey. Hey,” Steve says. Diana rarely cries, and the sight of her tears now alarms him. He quickly presses little kisses to her lips, to the tip of her nose, to the apple of each cheek. Along the delicate shell of her ear.

“Steve,” she murmurs.

He nods. “That’s right. I’m here. I’m right here. Everything’s all right,” he says. “I made it, Diana. Hey. I’m fine.” 

But she’s not reassured. She pulls back, clearly still distressed, and looks him in the eye. 

“When you were in the hospital, Steve. You looked so _small_. So fragile. So… broken.” She closes her eyes. “You still are.”

He swallows and lets out a shaky breath. “I mean… I know I still have a long way to go until full recovery, but…” He leans forward until his forehead rests against hers. “But I’ve been home three weeks now, Diana, haven’t I?  And the doc says I'm doing great. Getting stronger every day.”

“Steve,” she says quietly. “What if I… what if  _we_  try to…” She blushes and pulls away, shaking her head.

He frowns, and turns her chin so she’ll look at him. “What if we try to what?” 

She gives a small huff of frustration. “What if I take you back to our bedroom, Steve – like I’ve wanted to do ever since bringing you home… and somehow, in the process, I… I don’t know. What if I… hurt you somehow?” A pause. “Physically, I mean. While we’re enjoying the pleasures of the flesh.”

Her words stun him, and his eyes go wide. And then for a very long moment his brain shorts out completely as an incredible set of images floats through his mind. 

He shakes his head, trying desperately to clear it.  

 _Not now_ , he berates himself.

He tugs her forward on his lap and folds her into a hug he hopes she finds comforting, even as her words have turned his blood to fire in his veins.

Although – well, at least now he thinks he understands the reasoning behind her on-and-off reluctance towards him.

The way she barely held his hand until after he was discharged.

How she wouldn’t kiss him until after his first night back at home.

And how even now, every time he thinks they’re about to progress beyond kisses on the living room sofa she suddenly stands up, yawns, and tells him she thinks she’ll go to bed early.

She’s been holding herself back. All because she’s worried about his health, his safety, if she’s intimate with him.

Time to put that worry to rest.

“Diana, look,” he says, as emphatically as he can. “You won’t hurt me if we… do that. I promise.”

She shakes her head again. “You can’t know that, Steve. You know how strong I am.” She looks away. “Even when I'm not trying to be.”

He nods, and chuckles a little in spite of himself. “I do know how strong you are. I’ve witnessed it first-hand. Many times. But I… look, Diana. I know you’ll never hurt me.  All right? I just know it.” He tenderly runs the back of his hand along the side of her face. “I trust you. With everything that I am. With my life.”

She closes her eyes again and leans into his touch. She lets out a breathy sigh.

“Steve?”

“Mm?” He coaxes her arms up around his neck once more, and he kisses her – gently, chastely – on the lips.

“I want to take you back to our bedroom more than anything,” she admits, her voice very low. “After that one time, back in Veld. . . I never thought we’d get to have that again.”

She kisses him back, then, her hands finding their way into his hair. She presses herself closer to him, her chest now flush against his, and it feels like nothing so much as a promise.

“I want that too,” he confesses, when they break apart. “So much.”

“Soon,” she whispers against his lips. “Soon. I just… for me, I want you to be a little stronger first. Okay?” Another tender kiss. “Even if there’s nothing to worry about, I’ll worry less if you’re stronger when we try.”

Steve chuckles again, and he breaks into a smile so broad it feels like his face will split in two.

“I can live with soon.”

She kisses the tip of his nose.

“Good,” she says, smiling back at him. “I’m glad.”


	6. #5: Treatise No. 7, Paragraphs 3-6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this chapter the fic properly earns its "M" rating. ;)
> 
> And... there's just an epilogue left to go. Thank you so much for reading this fic, and indulging me as I've worked through my what-could-have-beens for these two. Your kudos and comments have meant so much me. <3

**~Three weeks later~**

* * *

 

“What do you want, Steve?”

Diana hovers over him, dressed in nothing but her thin, cotton underthings. Her lips are less than a fraction of an inch from his, and she’s gently running her fingertips along the side of his face as she regards him, waiting for him to answer her question.

Steve blinks up at her stupidly, far too distracted by the situation they’re in – and far too stunned by her question – to think of a good answer to it.

In truth, he’s not totally sure he hasn’t died and gone to heaven. So what does she mean, asking him what he wants? What more could he  _possibly_  want?

“I want whatever you want. Anything you want.” It’s the truest thing he can think to say. In truth, he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more than what he already has, right now: Diana, in his arms, lying astride him in the bed that's now theirs.

Anything else she’s willing to give him is icing on the cake, really. Anything she wants from him is hers for the taking.

Diana smiles at his earnest confession and presses a gentle kiss to his exposed collarbone. Unlike her, Steve is still mostly dressed (something he hopes to rectify soon enough). But the feel of Diana’s full lips against his sensitive skin is enough, on its own, to send shivers down his spine all the same.

“I want to look at you,” she murmurs into his ear. She’s undoing the buttons of his shirt – slowly; as though she wants to give him a chance to stop her if it’s not something he wants. Like he would ever stop her from doing anything she wanted with him. “I didn’t get the chance to look at you before. And I want to see you.”

It’s true that their last time – their only time, before now – had been a hurried, desperate affair, with little in the way of leisurely mutual exploration. But Diana  _has_  seen him before. All of him. In living color, just after they’d met, back when he was still half-convinced that she and the island she lived on were nothing but figments of his overactive imagination.

Steve opens his mouth to remind her that she has, in fact, seen it all before.

But then her nimble fingers are working into his pants, undoing the buckle of his belt, and Steve’s words dry up on his tongue.

 

* * *

 

 

When at length she’s gotten the last of his clothes off, Diana sits back on her heels and regards him silently from the foot of the bed, tilting her head to one side as she looks him over.

“Please. Say something. ” His words come out on a hoarse whisper as he fidgets under her gaze. He can’t tell what she’s thinking right now. He can’t tell what she thinks of  _him_.  

He hasn’t been this terrified since high school, back when he was eighteen and stupid and just so grateful to be with any girl who would have him he couldn’t think straight.

But Diana doesn’t say anything. She leans forward and begins to gently, methodically, kiss her way up his body. She starts at his bare hip, pressing her lips to the bony ridge there, before shifting and repeating the action on the other side. She traces his navel, and the fine network of scars around it, with the tip of her tongue as she runs the pads of her fingertips along his ribs.

As she moves over him she pays careful, almost reverent attention to the thick web of scar tissue along his sternum. A souvenir from that fateful night in Belgium’s fiery sky.

Steve grips the bedsheets with white knuckles as Diana touches him, kisses him everywhere, every nerve ending in his body alight with need for the incredible woman above him.

“You’re beautiful,” Diana says when she’s finished. He can just barely make out her words over the roaring of his own heartbeat in his ears. He cracks open an eye, and she’s smiling down at him, her eyes earnest and bright.

She shifts a little and slings one leg over his prone body, straddling his hips. “You’re so beautiful,” she says again.  

And he thinks, desperately, as he takes in her face, her hair, her breasts:  _She’s got that backwards._

Still smiling, Diana leans forward and brackets his head with her arms.

Steve swallows, and braces his hands on her hips.

“Please,” he begs again. Though this time he’s not totally sure what he’s begging for.

Fortunately, Diana seems to understand his meaning well enough.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve tries to keep his eyes open as long as he can.

He wants this vision of Diana, moving over him, her head thrown back in ecstasy, in his mind’s eye for the rest of his life. He wants to memorize it, her – to burn this image of her into his retinas, so he can see her as she appears to him right now, always. Even when they’re apart.

But the sight sound taste  _feel_  of Diana, touching him, surrounding him, is too much. Before long the universe contracts to the place where they are joined, and his eyes squeeze tightly shut of their own accord.

“Diana,” he gasps on a choked breath, his hands steel vises on her hips.

She echoes his name back to him on a sharp cry of pleasure, a moment before the world around them blinks out.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve wakes just before dawn, the weak light of London's rising sun filtering in through the gaps in his curtains.

He cranes his neck a little so he can look down at Diana, still sleeping peacefully in his arms.  Her lips are slightly parted as she dreams, and her face is relaxed in a way it only ever seems to be in slumber. 

He thinks back on last night, grateful his body has finally healed enough for Diana to feel comfortable being with him like this. He smiles broadly, and gently burrows his face into her shoulder when he thinks about those _tips_ from certain of Cleo’s treatises Diana assured him no man before him had ever seen.

They stay together in bed until long after the sun rises, the two of them, wrapped up in their sheets and each other.  After all, there is nowhere else they have to be this morning.  And there are no wars left for them to fight.


	7. Epilogue: What it's Like

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the off chance anyone has been waiting for this story's epilogue, here it is. It took my seeing "snow" on a list of fic advent prompts for these words to finally come together on the page. 
> 
> Happy holidays, everyone! And may Steve Trevor live on forever in our hearts. :)

**Ten Years Later**

**New York City**

* * *

 

They’re dancing very close (or,  _swaying_ , as she’d called it once, all those years ago) when the first fat flakes of snow begin to fall around them.

Diana doesn’t notice at first. Her head rests lightly on Steve’s broad chest as they move together to the music coming from the speakeasy across the street, her arms wrapped around his broad shoulders and his hands splayed gently at the small of her back.

Eventually, though, the flakes begin to fall in greater numbers. It isn’t long before Steve and Diana find themselves in the middle of New York City’s first proper snowfall of the year.

Which feels fitting, somehow, given that it’s just struck midnight and tonight is New Year’s Eve.

Diana pulls back from him when at last she realizes what’s happening. He can't stop the smile that spreads across his face at the sight of her, clearly so happy and so delighted by this development.

“Snow,” she says, awestruck. She looks skyward, beaming. 

“Yup,” Steve agrees, feeling his smile grow even wider. “It’s snow.”

Does she remember the last time they danced together in the snow like this? He does, of course. It’s never far from his thoughts, that night they spent together in Veld. Not even after all these years with her by his side.

She shifts her arms up a little, until her fingertips are winding their way through the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“It’s like  _this_ , Steve,” she murmurs softly. “Isn’t it.”

His eyes go wide at the memory of the questions she’d asked him when they danced together all those years ago.  And at the lame, completely improvised answers he’d given her by way of response.

_What is it like?_

_I…. have no idea._

Because he hadn’t known, then, what it was like to share a lifetime of breakfasts and newspapers with the person you loved. How could he have possibly known?

But he knows now, of course.  And if he’s not much mistaken, he thinks she might know too. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs back to her.  He pulls her close, and presses a gentle kiss to her temple. “I think… I think it’s just like this.”

The crowded streets, the noise of the city –  all of it fades into the background as they continue dance together under the falling snow.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr! I'm there as jeeno2.


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